Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Weird stuff the US buys from Russia

Weird stuff the US buys from Russia
Make us preferred on Google

Bad news for anyone in America smoking a pipe on a recreational boat while playing a percussion instrument in a wig: the war in Ukraine could make your life a lot less colorful if Washington decides to sanction more US imports from Russia. All of those items are among the things the US buys from Russia, with love, every year.

So in the meantime, take a picture of them and print it on photo paper, then scrub your hands in a plastic washbasin, get a snack from the nearest vending machine, and settle in with a good children's picture book to read. When you are finished, take a moment to reflect on why, with Russia's help, you are such an unbelievably weird person.

Check out some of the weird and wild products America imports from Russia each year below.

Russian pipes still draw fans in America. Or at least they did until February 2022.

Value of US imports in 2020. Source: Observatory of Economic Complexity


More For You

Ukraine has won Trump's favor. Can it keep it?
- YouTube
Winning Trump's favor is one thing. Keeping it is another.Just four months after their tense Oval Office meeting on February 28, 2025, Donald Trump welcomed Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit in Ankara with a noticeably warmer tone. For Ukraine, that's an encouraging shift—but hardly a guarantee of lasting American support. [...]
Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on June 18, 2026.

Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on June 18, 2026.

REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
The US and Iran are back at war.On Monday, President Donald Trump announced the United States would reimpose its naval blockade of Iran, effective Tuesday afternoon. Iran responded by declaring the Strait of Hormuz closed to all traffic that does not route through its preferred corridor and coordinate with Iranian authorities. Brent crude, which [...]
The demolition of the border fence between Spain and Gibraltar in La Línea de la Concepción, on July 15, 2026.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares and Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo attend a ceremony marking the demolition of the border fence between Spain and Gibraltar in La Línea de la Concepción, on July 15, 2026.

Samuel Vega/JNA Press/Sipa USA
A physical border falls, a digital one risesSome 118 years after it was installed, the border fence between Spain and the British overseas territory of Gibraltar fell on Tuesday, after the European Union and the United Kingdom clinched a long-awaited deal last year over how to manage the border in the wake of Brexit. But while one wall falls, [...]
China’s economic engine cools
Will Fitzpatrick
China’s economy posted one of its slowest quarterly growth rates on record. The slowdown was hardly a surprise: earlier this year, Chinese officials set the country’s lowest growth target since 1991. The weak growth is not coming from a decrease in manufacturing. In fact, exports rose 27% year over year in June. Instead, it’s coming from sluggish [...]